


don't suppose you know where the train goes

by goreallegore



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Fluff, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-29
Updated: 2016-02-29
Packaged: 2018-05-23 23:14:10
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,330
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6133441
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/goreallegore/pseuds/goreallegore
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There's a bar at the end of the street and Harry's a frequent customer.</p>
            </blockquote>





	don't suppose you know where the train goes

There is a banner outside the club, neon red lights strung together to form the word ‘ _ALWAYS_ ’, on top of the grungy metal door that creaks every time the bouncer pulls the handle to open it, the metal grinding harshly against the solid concrete pavement. There’s a queue that’s winding around the brick building, young girls dressed in fish-net tights and too tight leather jackets, fags hanging off their cherry stained lips, tattoos hidden under the meager clothing, the crop tops that shy away around the curve of their breasts.

There’s a streetlamp that’s illuminating yellow light at the curb where boys are sitting, their skateboards tucked under the sole of their feet, moving the longboards back and forth as they laugh at jokes that ebb away the humor they’d first possessed. The humble strangers passing by, on their way back from work, have their gazes lowered trying not to glower at the fresh scent of younglings on the edge of thrill and life, and it’s all a show, a phase and it’s ok because that’s what helps them sleep.

Harry’s all that, and none, he’s pulling his own jacket tight to his chest, shaking the tangles out of his curls and breaking the line to walk up to the bouncer, flashing a grin and earning a chorus of scoffs when he’s being let in, no id to show save the heart on his sleeve. Battered, and trampled, and he’s only looking to unmoor the stitches further, stepping inside and inhaling the stale air jostled with the burning desires of kids who are only crumbling.

He weaves through the sweaty crowd of boys and girls, girls and girls, boys and boys, latched skin to skin, and makes his way to the bar. Ordering a regular he’s seized to recite now that he’s been here, once, twice and so many times he’s lost count. The heads bobbing to music that borders cringe-worthy poetry enunciated around a glass of champagne under the twinkling lights of the Eiffel Tower. That was his first date, in the city that coins love for itself, and it was the last to leave him sated.

The bartender slides the dark liquid across the counter, the glass gliding with ease, sloshing only a little, into the palm of his left hand leaving a numbing damp sensation. A swig of his drink, a bitter sting to his tongue, grounds him to the murky floor that’s never seen daylight. With hooded eyes he scans the crowd, colors blending together like kaleidoscope of his broken nightmares that keep him awake at night, his skin burning and yelling to push to stop the eyes raking his body over and over like an object meant to be consumed.

Harry remembers two summers past graduating sixth from, loitering the cracked streets, and the narrows paths of the city, stumbling into a man with intent and determination on his face. A card slipped into his hand, a number imprinted into his memory, he remembers calling it and being asked to come in to studio. There were cameras and fluorescent lights, an umbrella that stood tall not to shield him from rain, but to make his skin look clear – brightened.

He signed the contract in one fluid movement, his name across sheets of paper and clauses and words that went over his head, and then he remembers the red carpets. The start, and somehow it still is, but it’s feeling closer to the brink, the cliff of the end where he falls and can’t get back up again. Because the pit is endless and still has a bottom, staked with sharp needles that poke into his spine and tell him that it is the end.

A soft voice cuts through the raunchy lyrics blaring through the speaker, dipping deep into the lucid river of colors, and says, “It’s Thursday night, so we’ll slow it down a bit, yeah? Grab a pretty hand and dance along.”

The flesh of his lips are pink, chewed and gnawed, torn between the straight white teeth that reflect under the spotlight, Harry thumbs the mouth of his glass, the words of the song falling like petals of a terribly beautiful flower he’d forgotten to look after. Soft and easy, like life demands nothing, but care and love.

The phone in the pocket of his jeans buzzes, a name he associates with the rancid taste in his mouth, the putrid aroma wafting from the loo making the hair stand on the back of his neck and that’s what he’s most familiar with. His mother once said, “to be loved by the one you love is the greatest feeling of all.”

Harry had dreamed starry-eyed about the girl with eyes igniting like amber, the topaz ring around her fourth finger, the hiccup in her laugh. Harry had thought she’ll bring the moon to his feet, and help him collect the stars, but she flitted around slipping though the tips of his burnt fingertips leaving his heart barren.

There’s a boy on stage singing about a girl who didn’t know about life and the awfully unkind souls that had the pleasure to live it, and Harry wants trace the freckles on the bridge of his nose, kiss the mole at the column of his throat, suck until the skin is bruised and blue and his nails have left scratches on the surface of his back.

A bird with hopeful eyes, and peach stained lips, approaches him and she doesn’t fit like the girl in his dreams hadn’t and she rubs patterns onto the skin of his arm, tracing around the mast of his ship and the artery of his heart, and Harry tries, but lingers too long around the words ‘what a shame’ that the boy croons into the mic. And the girl takes a hint, ducks into the crowd her cheeks aflame, and her heart marred.

The set ends and music blares to deafen the mass, so loud that it’s almost too quiet, enough to hear his thoughts pounding and grinding and instigating cogs that turn at the late hours of the night. The sky is still pink with trickles of yellow and midnight blue blanketing like steady waves, slowly but surely, Harry thinks.

The boy steps off, winding down the crowd, passing an apology to two girls with their fingers tangled in each other’s hair, their skin sun-kissed. He pulls in front of Harry, grinning like he’s won a trophy – a treat to keep him satisfied till day are gone by, but he’s so helplessly misunderstood. Because Harry’s heart is beating, his flesh is on fire as soon as the boy sidles next to him, their bodies aligning like constellations spread across the wide expanse of sky; the roof for their mortal being.

The itch to smoke down the packet of cigs in his chest drawer at home dies along with thoughts of loneliness, the boy’s smile deepening the dip of his left dimple, the darkness of the club paling in comparison to the blue of his eyes.

“Hello, my love,” he whispers, delicately. His words are laced with confidence and a promise to stay through the nights of crying, sheets stained wet with tears and the hollow feeling in Harry’s bones is filled and he’s swaying to the beat of a song with lyrics that escape his mind.

“You’re ravishing,” Harry says, because it’s normal not to and Niall’s anything but. He’s the light that ignites when hope is gone and he keeps Harry at bay.

A loud unabashed chuckle is melodic in midst of music, and the thrum in his veins and the breath that inhales in a single name, is not-so-familiar. And he reckons, if destruction is what the strangers passing by see then he’d happily crumble to pieces in Niall’s arm and learn to love like he is on the edge, and he is free-falling with arms that feel safe and strong and sound enough to call home.  


End file.
